I do not know if LH738’s main intention was to compare eg *wood points with MR points, as he created the point calculator. There are so much possibilities to redeem (eg hotel stays, transfer into airline miles, etc), when it comes to value hotel points.

Further more, I see that some poster do not differ between "price" and "value", which is very important for me. I define "value" what it's worth to me and “price” what I have to pay for this service. Let me come up with an example:

On a given day, the price for a suite is USD 440,--, for a club level room USD 135,-- and – the room I book - for a standard room USD 95,--. Assume the check in agent gives me the choice for a suite without access to the lounge and a club level room. I will choose the later, but wood never argue I “saved” USD 40,-- or I “lost” USD 305,-- (my friend would say I should have booked the room for USD 40,-- on Priceline). I think this way: someone gives me the choice of either getting a room for USD 440,-- or some amount in cash, how much cash would he need to offer me to take the cash? If he offered me the room for USD 240,-- and USD 200,-- in cash, would I still consider the USD 440,-- suite the better value? I would say no. IM the key question is: Where would be the limit for me? Once I figure that limit out I know "my value".

As I used the FGP points & and requalification calculator for the first time, it was amazing for me to realize, how low the “discount” is within a frequent guest programme (FGP), if you compare it with the “discount” of frequent flyer programmes assuming you spend the same amount of money. Since I recognized that, I am much more price sensible and therefore I am looking more carefully on how to get the best rate rather than to maximize my FGP points. And at this stage, it is very important to compare the prerequisites of (re-)qualification for a top tier…

In your speadsheet, how did you earn points? In the reward equation, the difficulty of earning points is as important as the difficulty of redeeming points.

If you compare the Marriott Maui Resort to the Westin Maui the Marriott costs 120K for six nights, the Westin 50K (one night free).

For non-hotel charges, both chains award one point for every dollar spent on their respective credit cards. So in this case the Marriott award costs 140% more than the Starwood award.

I realize these properties aren't exactly the same and that the math will be different if you get most of your points through stays.

How you earn points matters as much as how much it costs to cash them in.



[This message has been edited by Family flyer (edited Mar 05, 2004).]

[quote]<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Family flyer:
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<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">In your speadsheet, how did you earn points? In the reward equation, the difficulty of earning points is as important as the difficulty of redeeming points.

If you compare the Marriott Maui Resort to the Westin Maui the Marriott costs 120K for six nights, the Westin 50K (one night free).

For non-hotel charges, both chains award one point for every dollar spent on their respective credit cards. So in this case the Marriott award costs 140% more than the Starwood award.

I realize these properties aren't exactly the same and that the math will be different if you get most of your points through stays.

How you earn points matters as much as how much it costs to cash them in.

[This message has been edited by Family flyer (edited Mar 05, 2004).]

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In general, I think you need to separate hotel stay earnings from credit card earnings. As I noted earlier, the exception would be when the credit card awards more points for hotel charges than for other charges, as is the case with Marriott Rewards VISA and both the Hilton AMEX and VISA.

If you look only at hotel stay earnings (and ignore credit cards completely), I have to agree with divaoftravel that Starwood comes in dead last, particularly if you are a base member. Comparing the properties of two programs in a single location, such as the Maui example, seems to miss the mark. In this particular instance (6 nights in Maui), I would agree that Starwood is a somewhat better value than Marriott. But unless Maui is the only location that you ever plan to redeem your points, it would seem that a more general view is needed. Most of us don't use our points that way and I'm sure we could find numerous examples in other locations where Hilton or Marriott would come out on top.

It is interesting to note that while I consider Starwood's hotel stay earnings to be the worst (of Starwood, Marriott, and Hilton), the credit card earnings from the Starwood AMEX card are the best. Marriott is almost the opposite; excellent hotel stay earnings but the worst credit card, offering only 1 point per dollar for non-Marriott purchases. So if you want to maximize your earnings/redemption value while diversifying your points portfolio at the same time, you would stay with Marriott or Hilton but use the Starwood AMEX as your primary credit card. This is exactly what I do, FWIW.

[This message has been edited by MileKing (edited Mar 05, 2004).]

[This message has been edited by MileKing (edited Mar 05, 2004).]

There is one other benefit of HHonors, over both Starwood and Marriott, that hasn't been mentioned. HHonors award stays count toward status re-qualification. This is potentially huge and I'm surprised it has not gotten much press here on FlyerTalk. Not only do you get the value of redeeming the points for a free stay, but the stay/nights count towards renewal. This could be considered the equivalent of getting twice as much value out of each award night. Every award stay is one less hotel stay you have to pay out of your own pocket towards re-qualifying.

Maybe if you're going for Diamond; for any other level, it's worthless since anyone can get status with all the promotions they run.

You want comparison. Here is a real life scenario.

Today, I tried booking an award for Key west for the coming weekend. The Hilton is booked solid and there are no rooms available for purchase too.

A quick call to the Diamond desk and they got me a suite in an oversold resort on points. I am not talking about a guaranteed room at rack rate. Even a SPG plat status cannot beat that.

Disclaimer: I have a HH Diamond and SPG Plt.

So the common theme among FT'ers is approximately this:

- If you are a frequent business traveler with a company paying enough qualifying-rate-nights to get you to top tier, HH is your program. The Diamond treatment plus 25 or 27.5 or whatever pts/$ make this program unbeatable - IF you are doing the volume in actual qualifying-rate-stays.

- If you do a mix of business plus leisure, but not enough to reach top tier, HH might still be your program if you are doing enough qualifying-rate volume to reach a meaningful award. Everybody is Gold in that program, which yields 17.5 points/$ plus air miles. (I forget if HH offered me the chance to take the 50% point bonus instead of air miles or not. I haven't been paying close attention.) If your biz travel is mid-scale to low-end, then you might look more to SPG because you won't drive enough meaningful volume to hit the big awards in the HH program.

- If you do little or no business travel, then SPG is your program because "normal" credit card usage will yield free hotel rooms very quickly. I figure I can do about $3k/month on my SPG Amex with just regular bills and expenses. If I so choose, I can turn that into a near-endless stream of free weekends at Four Points or Sheratons. Or, I can take one free 5-night trip per year to a nice resort. That's pretty good loot for someone who doesn't do hardly any qualifying room revenue.

Marriott and Hyatt come into play with specific promotions like FFN. And a lot of people just like the Marriott brands, so they stay there even if the program isn't QUITE as rewarding as another one could be.

Thanks for your synopsis, pinniped!

I have a different approach as you, because I do focus frequent guest programs on the benefits I can expect during my stays if I have top tier status and not on rewards I can redeem later (reason: PL comes into play…). IMO gleff asked the key question: What benefits are most important to you?

I have been working on a comparative analysis of the programs for Hilton, Hyatt, Intercontinental, Marriott, and Starwood.

There are too many variables in the hotel loyalty programs to really develop an objective comparison. The bottom line is that I think it is really a snapshot look to evaluate the programs at any particular time. It all depends on the promotions offered at the moment. Promotions can set any of the 5 programs ahead of the others.

For example, right now Hyatt comes out dead last in my recent analysis, but that is simply because they don't currently have an online booking bonus and the Free Nights promo has ended. Last month it would have been overwhelmingly on top.

Trends I see(based on several tables I have created to compare the programs):
Go for top status in any program and you are a winner. The value received by a top tier elite is much more than lower level members. For example a Starwood Platinum on one night stays with $100 in charges would need 20 stays for a Category 6 high season 25,000 point hotel award, whereas a SPG Gold would need 32 stays to accumulate the same number of points. Compare this to a Priority Club Gold who can earn an Intercontinental 30,000 point award with 15 stays or a Platinum with 12 stays.

One of the analyses I did was to assume top-tier status in each program and assume single night stays with $100 in point earning charges and an online booking bonus:
At top-tier Platinum or mid-tier Gold Starwood is unbeatable for their low category properties compared to the others. A member can earn a free night for every 3 to 4 stays vs. 8 stays at Hilton, 12 stays Hyatt (doesn't consider a booking bonus), 4 to 5 stays Marriott, and 6 stays with Priority Club.

For top level properties Priority Club comes out on top with 12 stays for a free IC night vs. about 16 stays for Hilton, Starwood, and Marriott.

For a mid-tier elite, Priority Club comes out on top especially since you can buy gold status for $50 vs Marriott which also shows good value, but requires 50 nights for status.

Hilton still has the advantage of allowing airline miles transfers.

Hyatt has the most generous promotions with their FFN, but without that promo they don't fare that well in a head to head comparison.

If you are not top-tier with Starwood and you want to stay at high end properties, then they fare the worst in my comparisons.

With no status, then Marriott and Intercontinental's Priority Club fare the best for getting awards with the least amount of money spent.

To reitierate, these trends are based on multiple one night stays. The majority of points are due to booking bonuses per stay common for online reservations and for Starwood and Marriott assume a 500 point platinum amenity gift.

If your travel pattern is for multiple nights at a property then these comparisons won't necessarily be valid.

Bottom line: If you have 25 or more stays in a year then go for top elite with Hilton, Hyatt, or Starwood. If you stay multiple nights then Priority Club or Mariott might be a good choice. If you have loads of AA miles then Hilton is your best bet.

It really depends on your travel pattern.

I second the great advantage of HHonors allowing award nights to count for stay credit. I think I had 2 paid stays with Hilton in 2003, but with about 600,000 points in award stays I maintained my status through free nights and also got back about 100,000 of those points. I have never understood how they calculate awarding points on free stays.

I am not complaining.

satori:

When you ran your numbers, what assumptions did you make about credit card usage? Did you assume that the top-tier guest uses the appropriate program credit card for their stays, but not other spending? Or did you also assume that the top-tier member uses the appropriate card for $X dollars/month of non-hotel spending.

The reason I ask is that it appears from reading FT that nearly all active Starwood folks use the SPG Amex as their primary card. HH and MR top-tiers are more mixed: most use the appropriate card for their stays, but many use other cards for their other non-hotel spending.

I did not use any credit card activity in the hotel comparisons.

Obviously that would influence the comparisons. That is an additional variable that could be used in any comparison, but not a necessary variable in my opinion.

I tried to reduce the variables to make a reasonable analysis. I used booking bonuses of 1,000 points per stay for Marriott, Hilton, and Intercontinental because over the course of a year I think that a member will average 1,000 points during the year for reservations. I used 500 points for Starwood. While there are periods when these programs don't offer booking bonuses there are other times they do and I think that the average of 1,000 points or 500 for Starwood works over the course of a year for 15 to 30 stays.
I didn't use a booking bonus for Hyatt because I haven't researched it well enough yet to know if that is a valid assumption for Hyatt.

Does Hyatt regularly offer booking bonuses for online reservations?

So my comparisons use points earned for hotel folio based on status and assume an average booking bonus is earned.

Any comparison without using platinum amenity points or booking bonuses leaves Starwood at a comparative disadvantage and is not typical of a member's actual Starpoint earnings since the 500 points for online reservations and the 500 points platinum amenity are a significant part of the Starwood earnings value.

A $100 folio for a Gold or Platinum SPG member would only be 300 points, but the booking bonus is typically 500 points, and for the Platinum member an additional 500 points is typically earned. 1,300 points for a $100 stay vs. using 300 points for a $100 stay is a huge factor in comparative analysis of overall award night cost.

Credit cards are like other partner activity and would not apply to all loyalty program members equally regardless of status, so a person would need to factor in their own card usage and other point earning partner activity for individualized comparisons.

Hyatt is currently offering 1000 points for online booking and quite a few properties offer another 1000 or 2000 Gold Points per stay.

"Influence" is a mild word: when you factor in credit card usage, it radically changes the numbers. It is NOT an equal variable in the three major programs. Any top-tier member seriously running the numbers would absolutely factor this in - at a minimum, using the card at the hotels.

Am I beating a dead horse here? Am I the only guy here who carries all three cards? (MR Visa, HH Amex, SPG Amex) Do other frequent hotel guests just ignore the cards altogether?

If you factor in credit card use, particularly non-hotel charges, then any comparison becomes increasingly complicated unless you are going to have extended tables to account for charge amounts at incremental levels. That analysis would be useful if it applies to you, but more work than I am interested in at this point.

What about a person who uses Diner's Club? or cash back cards?

Hyatt has their online booking bonus pretty well hidden on their web page. I didn't see it when I went through the site a couple days ago.

I know there is are targeted promos for 10,000 and 15,000. I will go back and add the 1,000 points per stay in my Hyatt calculations since it sounds like over the course of the year a member would probably average that amount for stay bonuses.